, 1887-09-04

MOONS WeIe spout III TdmDle5 ABOUT Jne
surrounding country. [ made myself
familiar with all its places famous in his
tory or fable. l knew every spot where
a murder or robbery had been committed,
or a ghost seen. l visited the neighbor-
ing villages and added greatly to my
stock of knowledge, by noting their habits
and customs and conversing with their
sages and great men,"
l have a fancy, followed with some pro-
fit in an endeavor to discover Tor the de-
light of others, trace of the old haunts of
Irving, that in that last sentence
is THE TRUE KEY
which might open to a still moro assidu-
GUS searcher the real training grounds of
Americas tenderest prose writer. Fol
lowing this, | have in the few months
just past exhausted innumerable hopeful
clews. Few led to the youth and his
youth tide direct. But all of them bring
to a time and condition most favorable for
developing Irving's genius. He was a
loved son, an admired brother. With
the austerity Of the religious atmosphere
of his home, there were also the most
ample trust and generosity. Young
Irving did about as he had a mind. That
was never very badly. But he was thor
ougEly human, withal, and | have come
upon tales from the lips of those still liv-
ing of how they were told by those of
lrving's equal age many an incident illus
trious of his Unconscious trend toward the
later certain development. Some of these
show his trifiing scholarship, but his ex-
haustless love for books, and especially
those OF the rare old Elizabethan writer's,
the eighteenth century classics and the
hearty, genial, unctious English produc-
tons OF a century ago. Some, too, give
the more human side of the young man,
and show how, while he always got into
his fathers house for nine O'Clock even
ing prayers, he had as surely slipped in
from good company elsewhere, or from
the near theater; and Immediately after
the forgivable pretense of retiring for the
night had skipped down the ancestral
books he devoured, not his schooling,
human experience and unconscious study
of men and things, stored and mellowed
his heart.
SOME OF THE L HAUNTs.
In hat time, about $780," recently
said a very old man to me-a younger
brother of one of 1rving's companions
there were several famous ale and chop
houses in the quaint and CHEEKY easements
of Ann street. Park Row and the neigh
borhood. They had a different atmos.
phere than the saloon of to-day. They
really provided housing for the club spirit
OF the time. In them was always found
a choice collection of congenial spirits
l~eisurely exchanging gossip, wit and
doughty tales. Irving was not a loafer at
these places; but he fed on their feasts of
droll humor and quaint happenings,
Every moment when he could steal away
from home observation or boyish duties,
he passed drinking in tho wisdom which
flowed from the older frequenters' lips"
About the Astor library and American
Institute are a goodly lot of old, old men
with '~'alcove cards" or free privileges,
who sit and read and doze day in and out,
fitting into the shadowy surroundings like
the rest of the dust, must and silence
there. If one can awaken their interest
in anything, they will rub up their dim
memories heartily and serve you glibly.
From these | have secured many similar
corroborative assertions which they recall
from half-forgotten statements of others.
Out of these some charmingly interesting
facts may be sifted. Toms Ale and
Chop House" in Thames street, the little
~thoroughfare Just north of old Trinity, was
for years a place where the lad, Irving
enjoying the friendly protecting patronage
of an old ale faster, yclept king George"
by the frequenters and by them elevated
to the mock dignity of king of misrule at
"Tom's''-sat there almost daily for
hours, open mouthed, big eyed and re-
ceptive, t%reasurlng
H ~HoBGoBLIN TALES
such as gave us The Money Diggers,"
and unaccountable yarns %emanating from
the ne'er.do. wells there gathered. In a
later day, too, when the youth had nearly
reached mans estate, there were Wind
ust's," at Park Row and Ann street,
where the play actors and the small
clothes literary men OF the time came,
and SANDY Welch's Terrapin LUNCH"
in the basement of the old struc :ure which
stood where the Herald building now
stands. In the latter, Irving and his
brother Peter, twelve years his senior,
often saw the fussy and pompous "prac-
TIGER Of physic, member of congress and
of various other societies. DR.. Samuel
Latham Mitchell, the butt of the wits OF
the day, whose ponderous Picture of
New York" beginning with an account
OF the aborlglnes, prompted Its burlesque
in that tremendous feast of drollery,
Knickerbocker's History of New York,
which, to Guido all other authentic his
tories, was begun with an account of the
worlds creation. In the former resort,
the grand ways of the play actors so fred
his youthful fancy, that, on his sudden
and continued appearance from his accus-
toned evening haunts, inquisitive com
p~anions discovered him in, and boldly
rescued him from, the vocation OF a
super at the play house near; from
which can easily be traced his lifelong
tondness for actors, and the queer literary
episode in Paris in 1923 4, of dramatic
collaboration with John Howard Payne.
But whatever the kindly fancy may
c%onjure about the developing man in these
city haunts, as enrIching and mellowing
to literary fruition with Irving, as the
Devils Tavern and the Mermaid to John
son, or the Cheshire Cheese Tavern and
the Globe Tavern t. Goldsmith, ones
greatest delight is found in the sure trac-
ing which can be made OF his gradual at
traction to those old inns and taverns re-
sorted to by farm folk OF the
LEdEND HAUNTED I'LL